Chris Wallace has made a career of pretending to be a serious journalist. Wallace is to Fox News what pipe cleaners are to high art—sure you can probably get some high level art done with it, but usually, it’s fun to twist things up with … and colors!
This past Sunday he had presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on his show via satellite for a little interview. Chris and Bernie spoke about some of the Sanders campaign’s talking points and then Wallace went in for his gotcha question: Bernie Sanders likes to say that the wealthiest Americans have “rigged” our country, but, according to Wallace, back in 1981 (the year where Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy down to 17 percent) taxes on the rich were so low and now they’re so high (37 percent). Doesn’t this mean that the rich aren’t doing a good job of “rigging” the system?
Bernie smiles because, like anything coming out of the mouth of something looking at a Fox News camera, this is not the newest thought or an unheard of argument. Forget about the fact that Reagan had to subsequently sign huge tax raises not once but twice because of the disaster his original 1981 tax cuts were. Bernie smiles and begins to laugh, and you have to watch it because it truly tickles Bernie, you can see it in his eyes, to be asked something so patently false. You get the feeling that Bernie Sanders begins laughing because of all the idiotic things he knew he might have to hear during an interview on Fox News, this was not going to be one of them.
Ohh, Chris, I think you are missing the point here.
Bernie goes on to school Wallace on things most of us call “reality.”
The fact that Bernie doesn’t throw something through the camera at Wallace is proof that Sanders can really be diplomatic when faced with laser-like idiocy.